Oh my god, I'm back! After a centuries long hiatus in space (And fighting alien robot-zombies in a Galaxy far, far away), I have returned! With an actual, good idea!
Enjoy, my comrades!
Me, own Yu-Gi-Oh! Pshaw. Oh, ye ill-nurtured mammets. Of course I don't own a bit of such a thing!
[A King]
The Egyptian night was cold, as all desert nights were. Winds from the east blew up sand and grit in the travelers path, battering them not with large obstacles but with tiny stings. It was thought this that the High Priest had traveled, up a twisting, steep mountain path long forgotten by time and known only to the oldest of Pharaohs. He found the entrance to the cave, dismounting his horse and leaving it just inside, treading the narrow and twisting path through the rock carefully before coming to a large cave.
It was a magnificent hollowed-out space, almost as large as the Pharaoh's court itself, but infinitely more bare. At it's center was a pool, full of crystal clear water, which glowed with a green-blue iridescence. Beside the pool, on a rock, sat a woman.
She was draped, from head to toe, in plain white linen. It fluttered without a breeze, sliding lightly over tanned skin. A hood obscured her eyes. From beneath it, black hair fell about her face and shoulders. Her feet disappeared into the water, the liquid seeming to hold her there, grabbing onto her ankles and clothes.
"'Tis not prudent for thou to be here. 'Tis not wise. But then," Khepri turned to look at the man who stood at the other end of the large stone chamber- the cave. She cocked her head to the side. "Thou hast never been wise, Seto Kaiba."
He frowned at her. He was devoid of all his usual vestments, without even the millennium rod.
"I am not here for assessments on my character, woman. I am here-"
"Thou art here for me to see only what unseeing eyes can see. But why not ask kind Isis for the knowledge thou dost seek?"
"Isis cannot see as far as The Oracle. The millennium necklace only allows one a premonition."
"A passing vision in a sea of confusion, a thing which the viewer can make neither head nor tail of. And so thou dost seek me out," She turned back to her well. "'Twas... inevitable."
"Will you tell me what I wish to know," He asked, taking a step closer. "Or will my long journey have been in vain?"
She hesitated a moment, placing a hand to her mouth and frowning a bit.
"Come hither, Seto Kaiba," She beckoned him with a wave of her hand. He crossed the chamber, stopping by her side. "What magicks dost thou wish for me to perform? What dost thou wish to know?"
"Thou art The Oracle. I should not have to say."
"Of course. Thou wishes to know thy destiny, then. In this world, this time," She smiled at him. "And others."
"Nothing less."
She signed.
"If I do this thing for thee, Seto Kaiba, High Priest of the Pharaoh's court, then know the full scope of your request. Appreciate the magnitude of your request."
"I merely wish to know mine own fate."
"Across many worlds," She raised her arms, letting the linen fall back with the faintest whisper. "Know what barriers I have to destroy for thou to see this. Know what powers I defy."
"Could thou enlighten me as to these powers names, then, perhaps," Kaiba leaned over to get a better look at the water. Khepri smiled.
"If I knew such a thing, High Priest, then I would be a very great magician indeed."
The water bubbled. Then it frothed, before it seemed to explode upwards in a cloud of steam, lightening flashing through some of the clouds. Kaiba shielded his eyes, squeezing them shut at the white-hot light.
"Look, Seto Kaiba, upon the sight which hath been wrought for thee."
He opened his eyes.
He saw himself. More than one of himself- in all eras, all times. World upon world presented to him. A future in a country he couldn't name, another in a world where men lived below the waters, another where they lived above the clouds.
"Look you! A thousand Seto Kaiba's," Khepri spoke, "And a thousand lives that are to be lived. And all," The images disappeared, to be replaced by a single vision. "Are to meet the same fate."
A man- a husk of a man, a shadow, with tangled white hair and a plain, white mask- one eye obscured.
I will make thee a king!
The mask disappeared, revealing an old man with sallow skin. His hair shifted away from his face, revealing the millennium eye.
I will make thee a king!
Priest Ahkenaden- a Shade, trapping him in a perpetual, moving darkness, casting him into a place that was, for all intents and purposes, a black underworld, a pace where nothing existed.
All of them, meeting the same fate.
Seto stumbled back with a yell, gasping for breath. Khepri sat calmly on her rock, facing towards him.
"All- All the same fate," He asked when he had gotten a hold of himself.
"All the same fate. Year after year, time after time, eon after eon," She shrugged. "'Tis a destiny unescapable."
"Thou suggests I resign myself to it."
"I suggest you put it out of your mind."
"I will escape it."
"You will try," She shrugged again. "All the same. New, old, all the same. They wish to know their destinies, to try and defy the things they are helpless in the clutches of."
'I will make thee a king!' seemed to echo around the chamber.
"...Can anything be done to stop it?"
Khepri paused.
"Nothing. Thyself nor I can oppose wheels of fate. Old men or new, gods forgotten by time or ones at the heights of their powers- Apep must always be slain by Ra, Jormungandr by Thor, the Thief by the Pharaoh. Thou shalt always be tempted by this promise of power and thine own fear, and thou shalt always succumb. If for a time," She held up a hand. "I only see fate move, Seto Kaiba, but I am powerless to stop it."
He glared at the pool, looking into the fathomless depths of it.
"I cannot be resigned to my fate."
He turned to leave, not hearing Khepri when she spoke.
"Thus it is requested by Seto Kaiba, High Priest of Pharaohs court! Thus it is ordained by The Oracle, and thus it is defied, a hundred, a thousand times over! And thus it shall always be."
She looked towards the entrance to the cave.
"Fight thine fate, Seto Kaiba, as thou hast done a thousand times before. Race on thine road to meet it."
[End]
Because I think Seto Kaiba is that guy who things so much of himself that he just has to know what happens.
After all, it isn't the past that's important, it's the future!
(And no, Khepri didn't show him everything- he backed off about halfway though it).
I've been toying with the ideas of Oracles and worlds with 'old gods' and 'new gods,' like in this story, where gods like Osiris, Isis, etc. have been done away with, and 'new' gods like Ra, Slifer, and Obelisk have become the new rulers of the heavens. As such, I do like a constant like an Oracle to be there to add another dimension to a story like this.
So, is my return good, bad, or just plain ugly? I'd like some feedback, if you please. ;)